Knauss 550 European Motorhome

We are completing a 25 day trip in a rental motorhome. It has been a great experience. The motorhoming experience here in Europe was fun, and we are planning on more trips in the future so we have to decide whether we ship our Malayan to Europe, rent, or purchase.

For this trip we rented a Knauss 550 from Francemotorhomehire.com. We arrived at the train station in Sens about 1.5 hours south of Paris, and were picked up and transported to their depot about 10km south of Sens. The handover was quick and efficient. If anyone is ever thinking about renting a RV here in Europe I highly recommend them.

The vehicle we picked up had been in service for about 2 years and had about 32000 km on the odometer. The vehicle had obviously been well maintained during the period, and their were very few cosmetic flaws on the inside or outside. The RV was extremely compact at 19.6 feet long, 10 feet high, and 7.2 feet wide (In comparison Scout our Malayan is 22.5 feet long, 10.5 feet high and 7.5 feet wide.). Despite the compact size the living area in the Knauss is actually from our perspective more comfortable for long trips than the Malayan.

Part of that is due to the Fiat Ducato (sold as the Ram Powerwagon in the US) does not have the hood of our Silverado, so more of the length is devoted to the house than to the engine, but also due to some smart decisions by the German designers. We particularly enjoyed having the bed at floor level, and still having a substantial sitting area. All of the space to the rear of the vehicle is used so the bathroom is larger than in Scout, and we had a floor to ceiling storage closet. In fact the storage is enormous compared to the Malayan.

In additon to the closet and abundant cabinet space they have a clever way of accessing the storage under the bed. The slat bed folds up in half giving you access to about 8 x 6 feet of storage. We were able to put our suitcases under there with the two lawn chairs, a folding table, and the hose and electricity cords. This storage area is also easily accessible from the outside.

The utility systems are simple compared to Scout due to the differences in camping styles. There is no inverter, and when dry camping you have only one USB outlet available. When plugged in there are plenty of electric outlets. We found that with proper management we could keep everything we needed charged from the one outlet, we dry camped about 60% of the time on the trip.

The RV holds about 30 gallons (120 liters) of fresh water accesible by filling a tank on the outside. There is no provision for hooking up water and having it on demand. In european campgrounds there are central water points where you fill the tank on arrival or departure. If you stay longer and do not want to move, we noticed most people carry 5 gallon water buckets and they manually refill there water every couple of days. The access points for water are quite large to allow for this. For black water it is the same cassette toilet system we have on Scout. The systems for disposing of grey and black water are quite different in Europe, and I think it would be very difficult for a RV with an American Black water system to work here.

The heater and hot water run on Propane, and they use standard cooking containers for propane. An issue that we did not experience is that there is no standardization of propane containers or fittings in the EU, so when you change countries you have to change fittings, and bottles, it is a pain but they cope with it. The heater/ hot water system is significantly quieter than the propane heater we had in our Winnebago, and also quieter than the Espar diesel heater in Scout. The heat is floor heating and works very well. We had a couple of nights in the 30’s on the trip, and were able to quickly warm the cabin when we woke up. The heater also heats the storage compartment.

There is no AC unit, but good windows of the same make as Scout and two roof vents without fans. We also experienced temperatures in the 80’s, and I would probably invest in a little battery operated fan.

The fit and finish and quality of the latches hinges and other hardware is superior to Scout. Much superior.

The Fiat Ducato has a 6 speed manual transmission attached to 2.2 liter diesel engine. We did some mountain driving in it and it handled the hills well. I imagine it would be a little more of a struggle with an automatic.

Part of the purpose of this trip was to decide whether to ship Scout over to Europe for a few years, or buy a vehicle here. The Knauss 550 that we rented sells new for around $60,000, and would probably fetch around $40,000 after 3 years usage. Another option is an Italian made RV on the same truck with a nearly identical layout. It runs for $50,000. Given the reliability issue of Scout in the past (with both the Provan and the Chevrolet part of the truck) we are leaning towards purchase of an european vehicle where if we do have an issue repairs will be much more straightforward. While the overall capability and the stuff inside are less, we found on this trip that we did not miss those amenities as much as we thought we would.

Tech Stuff

We brought our Garmin GPS unit over from the US with a European map set we purchased on line. It did the job, but was frustrating because it had no ability to tell the difference from a full sized “D” road where it was possible to drive close to the speed limit, and a 1 lane wide “D” road where maximum speed was around 50kph, or a D road that ran thru the center of a medieval town. Because of this we saw some very rural parts of France that we would not have, but it did come with some tight fits passing other vehicles and squeezing thru some narrow places. For future trips we will probably buy a European specific RV GPS unit.

For this trip we rented a mifi system from hippocketwifi.com. For about $200 we received a mifi unit, and 50gb of data. They send you the mifi unit before you leave the US, and when you leave France you drop the unit in a pre-paid envelope and return it to them. The system worked flawlessly and we came to depend on it for our daily planning. Using the Iphones wifi calling feature we were able to make and receive phone calls as if we were at home. We originally ordered a 30gb plan, but I think one day google maps may have been active while we were driving and ate up a bunch of data. With one email we were able to add 20gb more. They also have an unlimited plan which we may use on the next trip so we can stream some video. I highly recommend this, as in our case it would have cost over $300 to use our Verizon account in Europe and we would have been limited to 12gb of data.